Aung San Suu Kyi receives Sakharov Prize, finally

By Tom Watkins, CNN

Updated 1446 GMT (2146 HKT) October 23, 2013

Photos: Suu Kyi through the years24 photos

Suu Kyi through the years – Burmese opposition politician Aung San Suu Kyi was presented with a U.S. Congressional Gold Medal at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, September 19. She is known worldwide for her leadership and commitment to human rights in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The opposition leader and pro-democracy campaigner was kept under house arrest for years by the Asian country's military rulers. Take a look back at her triumphs and struggles:

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi, center, receives the Congressional Gold Medal. She is flanked by (from left) House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, right, stand with her.

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Suu Kyi through the years – A large cutout of the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Suu Kyi is on display on Wednesday.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, September 18, in Clinton's office at the State Department in Washington. It was her first visit to the U.S. in 20 years.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi greets her supporters as she visits a recently flooded area in Pathein township, the capital city of the Irrawaddy division, on September 1. Heavy monsoon rains in Myanmar forced tens of thousands of people to seek shelter in emergency camps.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi speaks during a regular session at the lower house of parliament in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, on July 25. Suu Kyi called for laws to protect the rights of the nation's myriad ethnic minorities in her inaugural address to the fledgling parliament.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi sits in the lower house parliament session in Naypyidaw on July 10.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi prays in honor of her late father, independence hero Gen. Aung San, during a ceremony to mark the country's 65th anniversary of Martyrs' Day at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Yangon, Myanmar, on July 19. The memorial is a tribute to Aung San and several other independence leaders who were killed on July 19, 1947.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi stands to address both houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall, London, on June 21 as Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, right, and Speaker of the House of Lords Baroness D'Souza stand beside her. Suu Kyi made a historic address to both houses of the British Parliament, making her only the fifth foreign dignitary since World War II to be accorded the rare honor.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi speaks during a Nobel lecture at Oslo City Hall on June 16 in Oslo, Norway. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 1991 but had not been able to receive it until now because she was kept under house arrest for most of the past 24 years.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi visits the Mae La refugee camp on June 2 in the western province of Tak, Thailand. The camp, situated along the Myanmar-Thailand border, is home to around 45,000 Karen people, an ethnic minority in Myanmar.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi leaves the Suvarnabhumi International airport on her first international trip in 24 years outside Myanmar on May 29 in Bangkok, Thailand.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi waves to Burmese workers on a trip to a migrant community outside of Bangkok on May 30 in Samut Sakhon, Thailand. Suu Kyi pledged to help improve the rights of Burmese nationals living in Thailand.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi speaks at the National League for Democracy party headquarters after after a landslide victory for a seat in the parliament on April 2 in Yangon. The NLD claimed 43 out of 44 parliamentary seats as the country continues its path of political and diplomatic reform.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi is surrounded by media as she visits polling stations in her constituency during the parliamentary elections on April 1, in Kaw Hmu, Myanmar.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi and Secreatary of State Hillary Clinton stand together during a news conference after their meeting at her residence in Yangon on December 2, 2011, where they laid out a framework for reforms.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi speaks in Yangon during a meeting to mark Human RIghts Day on December 10, 2010.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi addresses thousands of her supporters at her National League for Democracy headquarters on November 14, 2010.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi greets crowds of well-wishers at the gate of her house after her release from house arrest, on November 13, 2010, in Yangon.

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Suu Kyi through the years – U.S. President George W. Bush signs H.R. 4286, which gave the Congressional Gold Medal in absentia to Suu Kyi, in the Oval Office of the White House on May 6, 2008. From left : California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, first lady Laura Bush and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi listens to a question during a news conference after being freed from 19 months under house arrest May 6, 2002, making a triumphant return to her party's headquarters in Yangon. A year later, her motorcade was attacked by a pro-government mob, and she was placed under house arrest again.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi's son, Alexander Aris, left, accepts America's highest civilian honor from U.S. President Bill Clinton on his mother's behalf on December 6, 2000, at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi addresses hundreds of anxious Burmese supporters from the main gate of her family compound in Yangon on July 14, 1995.

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Suu Kyi through the years – Suu Kyi speaks in Yangon during an anti-military regime rally on August 26, 1988.

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Story highlights

"We have made progress since 1990, but we have not made sufficient progress," she says

The human rights activist spent years under house arrest

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991

"If we were all perfect, I think it would be a very boring world," she says in acceptance speech

Better late than never.

Twenty-three years after being awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Myanmar militant and parliamentary opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi collected it Tuesday from the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, but said she still has more work to do.

"We have made progress since 1990, but we have not made sufficient progress," said the former longtime political prisoner, who was freed in 2010 after years of house arrest.

Suu Kyi's award comes as Myanmar, sometimes referred to as Burma, is emerging from decades of authoritarian military rule that resulted in internal oppression and international isolation.

President Thein Sein, a former military official, has overseen the introduction of greater political freedoms, peace talks with ethnic rebels and the successful participation of Suu Kyi and her party in legislative elections.

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"Our people are just beginning to learn that freedom of thought is possible, but we want to make sure that the right to think freely and to live in accordance with a conscience has to be preserved," she told the international body, which gave her a standing ovation that lasted more than a minute.

"This right is not yet guaranteed 100%. We still have to work very hard before the basic law of the land, which is the constitution, will guarantee us the right to live in accordance with our conscience. That is why we insist that the present constitution must be changed to be a truly democratic one."

The changes the 68-year-old politician is seeking include one that would let her run for president.

She is ineligible to contest the presidency because of a clause that bans anyone with a foreign spouse or child. Suu Kyi's late husband, Michael Aris, was English and her two sons have British passports.

Suu Kyi praised Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist after whom the prize is named. Sakharov, who died in 1989, was "a great champion of human rights and freedom of thought," she said.

She cited the latter as essential to human progress. "Freedom of thought begins with the right to ask questions," she said. "Many of our people were arrested almost on a daily basis, and we had to teach them to ask those who came to arrest them -- Why? We had to teach them their basic rights and we had to say to them, if somebody comes to arrest you in the middle of the night, you have the right to ask: Do you have a warrant? Even that, many of our people did not know."

Suu Kyi's father, Gen. Aung San, was a hero of Burmese independence who went on to found Burma's military before his death in 1947; his daughter spent much of her early life abroad, going to school in India and at Oxford University in England.

Leadership was bestowed upon her when she returned home in 1988 after her mother suffered a stroke.

During her visit, a student uprising erupted and spotlighted her as a symbol of freedom. When Suu Kyi's mother died the next year, Suu Kyi vowed that just as her parents had served the people of Burma, so, too, would she.

In her first public speech, she stood before a crowd of several hundred thousand people with her husband and her two sons and called for a democratic government.

She won over the Burmese people, but not the military regime, which threw her in jail in 1989.

But even with Suu Kyi behind bars, her National League for Democracy party won the country's first democratic elections in more than two decades the following year by a landslide, gaining 82% of the contested seats in parliament.

The regime ignored the results of the vote and Senior Gen. Than Shwe continued to impose numerous terms of house arrest on her.

Suu Kyi, who last March won re-election as Myanmar's leader of the National League for Democracy, noted that the year she won the prize was the year when Myanmar had held its first democratic elections in more than two decades.

"But we were never allowed to take office, we were never allowed to even call parliament," she recalled Tuesday. "Instead, our party was oppressed, our people were persecuted and we had to struggle on for a couple more decades before we have come to this stage."

She added that a primary aim of the country's democratic movement is to bring about reconciliation, including between the army and the pro-democracy movement, and she called on world opinion to help.

In the age of globalization, "the weight of international opinion is immense," she said. "Nowhere in the world can people ignore what other people think."

Though no system is perfect, even democracy, "I think there is something nice and challenging about imperfection," she said. "If we were all perfect, I think it would be a very boring world."